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Towards Effective Teacher Professional Development for STEM Education in Hong Kong K-12: A Case Study

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Artificial Intelligence in Education Technologies: New Development and Innovative Practices (AIET 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies ((LNDECT,volume 154))

Abstract

STEM education has taken on high importance in Hong Kong K-12 education landscape. Despite policy advocacy and curriculum endeavour, the quality of STEM education varies significantly between schools. Research literature indicates that high-quality STEM education requires teachers’ rigorous delivery of topics and appropriate pedagogies, and one approach to improve such practices is teacher professional development (TPD). However, because current research on TPD has not given explicit consideration to the complex nature of STEM education, there remains a lack of a clear blueprint of how TPD should be conducted to build teachers’ capacity for STEM education effectively. This paper presents a case study that explores the necessary attributes and identifies the missing links of STEM education TPD by understanding how various TPD models supported a Hong Kong K-12 school embracing STEM education. Qualitative data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, were employed to draw a picture of TPD implementations in the selected school. The findings suggest that, at the macro-level, effective STEM TPD should not stop at employing mixed use of TPD models; the models have to be integrated organically with respect to a school-based STEM curriculum implementation approach. A collaborative culture between teachers must be cultivated for effective inter-disciplinary integration. Collaborative action research should also be promoted to develop collective wisdom of STEM pedagogies. At the micro-level, TPACK and cross-disciplinary integration skills need to be focusing areas of STEM TPD. With these guiding principles, some possible strategies for effective STEM education TPD are suggested.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, 3122, Australia

    Tianchong Wang

  2. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Taipo, N.T., Hong Kong S.A.R., China

    Eric C. K. Cheng

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  1. Tianchong Wang
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Correspondence to Tianchong Wang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong

    Eric C. K. Cheng

  2. Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Tianchong Wang

  3. IU International University of Applied Sciences, Erfurt, Germany

    Tim Schlippe

  4. Department of Food Science & Technology, University of Patras, Agrinio, Greece

    Grigorios N. Beligiannis

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Wang, T., Cheng, E.C.K. (2023). Towards Effective Teacher Professional Development for STEM Education in Hong Kong K-12: A Case Study. In: Cheng, E.C.K., Wang, T., Schlippe, T., Beligiannis, G.N. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education Technologies: New Development and Innovative Practices. AIET 2022. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 154. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8040-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8040-4_1

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